Lebanon, Tenn., (15 September 2024) – Meyer Shank Racing (MSR) closed the 2024 NTT INDYCAR SERIES in strong fashion as David Malukas (No. 66 AutoNation / Arctic Wolf Honda) claimed a ninth-place finish in Sunday’s season-ending Big Machine Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway.
Starting fifth, Malukas ran at the sharp end of the grid all day and threatened the leaders throughout all 206 laps around the 1.33-mile concrete oval. The team made the bold choice to stretch the fuel load of the No. 66 machine in the waning laps of the event, promoting Malukas to the lead with 10 laps to go, but when the hoped-for caution flag didn’t materialize, the Chicago driver pitted out of the lead with six laps left and settled for a ninth-place result.
The move did cement the No. 66 car’s place in the Leader’s Circle program as one of the top 22 cars in the INDYCAR SERIES this season, earning the team a $1.2 million bonus for doing so.
Felix Rosenqvist (No. 60 AutoNation / SiriusXM Honda) saw his best oval-track qualifying of the season go for naught as a tire failure resulted in a race-ending crash on Lap 56. The Swedish driver started third and was running in the top three when the tire went down and caused hard impact with the wall. Rosenqvist only failed to finish in four of the year’s 17 races, but all four of them came when the driver of the No. 60 machine had qualified ninth of better
The ninth-place run by Malukas marked his second top-10 result of the season and the eighth for MSR during the 2024 campaign. MSR made 35 combined starts during the ’24 INDYCAR season, the most since joining the series in 2017. The season’s results give the team 37 top-10 finishes in its 156 starts (23.7%). MSR also led in five different races, which is the most in a single season in team history.
Meyer Shank Racing Driver Quotes:
David Malukas: “That one kind of hurt, we ended up making the wrong call on strategy, we were betting on a yellow. Because if it worked out, we probably would have won it.
That’s just how the game goes, that’s how we played it. Really unfortunate but at the end of the day, the team got what we wanted and secured the leader circle points with this P9 to end up the season. Even though the result wasn’t what we wanted, our race was amazing. The guys did an awesome job, amazing stops and we were jumping people there, it was all because of them. Overall a really good way to end the season. 2024 has been a roller coaster but we ended on a high note.”
Felix Rosenqvist: “It’s been a summary of our year as we had a super-good run going on and the tire blew up. Luckily it wasn’t a very big hit but it took us out of the race. It started feeling weird going into the corner and then it drifted up and I was just a passenger.”
